Half Note

            On Thursday morning I worked on memorizing “Pan Pan Cul Cul” (A Good Spanking) by Serge Gainsbourg but Shouty McWheelchair was particularly angry under my window that morning and I found it very hard to concentrate. I managed to memorize all but the final verse.

            I washed another section of my bedroom floor almost in the middle. I’ve passed the splintered part of the floor and only had to scrape up a few paint splatters this time.

            I wanted to go to Freshco because on Thursdays they start the new deals for the week but it rained all day, so I didn't go out.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This episode had very bad sound quality. In the story it's Sapphire's birthday and she complains that all she has is junk jewellery. Kingfish takes what he thinks are fake pearls from her jewellery box so he can sell them and buy Sapphire a present. He sells them To Andy for $10 but it turns out that they are the only real jewellery she owns. He has to get them back from Andy. Andy wonders why pearls are so "respensive". Kingfish explains that there is only one pearl expert in the world and he has to eat a lot of oysters to find pearls but he hates oysters. It turns out that Andy has already given his girlfriend the pearls and so Kingfish poses as an appraiser. He brings a junk diamond broach from Sapphire’s box and tells hr the pearls are worthless. Andy gives her the fake diamond but when Kingfish gets home and gives her back the pearls she says that when she saw them missing she was so upset that her mother donated her real diamond broach but now that’s missing.

I worked on doing research into the Wǝlǝstǝk village of Meductic and found a very good book on the topic.

I had a potato, two drumsticks and gravy while watching Wanted Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen.

In this story a ten-year-old girl named Dolly in an orphanage run by nuns writes to Josh for help. She wants him to find her parents. The mother superior tells Josh that Dolly’s parents are dead if they don’t come for her. But Josh finds out that her father, Matt Cleary is a drunk living with a bigger drunk named Virgil on the edge of town. Matt had been driving his wagon drunk ten years ago and there had been an accident in which his wife had died. He decided to give baby Dolly to the convent. Josh goes to see Matt and tells him Dolly wants to se him. Virgil is a giant of a man who threatens Josh not to come there again. But that night in the local bar Matt comes and says he wants to be with Dolly. Josh says he’ll have to quit drinking and so over the next several weeks he oversees Matt’s transformation. He gets him cleaned up, gets him clothes and gets him a job. But the night before he is supposed to finally meet Dolly, Virgil gets him drunk. Josh goes to see Virgil to try to tell him to back off but Virgil says Matt is the only friend he’s ever had. They fight and Josh almost loses. It takes the help of some furniture to give Josh the upper hand. A month later Josh escorts a sober Matt to pick up Dolly. Driving the wagon is a sober Virgil. Having known plenty of alcoholics the chances of both men realistically breaking the habit so easily are worse than getting struck twice by lightning.

Dolly was played by Ahna Capri, who came to the United States as a child from Hungary and began acting at the age of eleven. She grew up to be a blonde bombshell and her most famous role was as the femme fatale in Enter the Dragon.

Late that night the wind was howling like a witch out on Queen Street. A strong wind on garbage night is not a good combination for the neighbourhood. The wind was knocking garbage bins out onto the street and knocking them into one another. I could hear them sliding and rolling down the street and trash was being set free only to become prisoners of little whirlwinds that were spinning in the middle of the intersection. I grabbed my camera and shot a little video.